Are Micro-Units Helping or Hurting Our Cities?

Last week, 33 development teams submitted to adAPT NYC–the Bloomberg-administration-supported competition seeking the best 275-300 sq ft/unit apartment building proposal [full disclosure: LifeEdited was on one of the teams]. According to the Wall Street Journal, this is three times the number of entrants similar competitions draw.

“The City’s adAPT NYC competition has ignited a global interest and conversation about how high-density urban centers can right-size their housing stock to fit changing demographics,” according to Mathew Wambua, commissioner of the housing preservation department.

Good news, right?

Well, not according to everyone.

This last Tuesday, a few thousand miles away in San Francisco, the South of Market Community Action Network (Somcan) took to the steps of City Hall to protest a proposed change in housing code that would permit dwellings as small as 150 sq ft.

Perhaps because of its proximity to Japan, San Francisco has been at the vanguard of small building in the US for some time. Unlike NYC, who demands new apartments have a minimum of 400 sq ft of living space (adAPT NYC is receiving a waiver on that), San Francisco already allows new spaces to be built as small as 220 sq ft. The Cubix SF, which has units as small as 230 sq ft, has been around for several years. An upcoming project by SmartSpace at 38 Harriet St in the SoMa neighborhood will feature 4 stories of 300 sq ft units.

What Somcan is protesting is the city’s ostensible shifting focus from family-friendly affordable housing to housing for affluent, childless singles and couples. This is taken from Somcan’s Facebook page:

SF has yet to meet its SF Housing Element plan of prioritizing affordable family housing units and yet creating housing for the new techies in the neighborhood seems to be first on the agenda. With less families in San Francisco means less family-friendly city and less funds for our public schools. It will be competing with the minimal land that the City has which can be use for REAL affordable housing. This type of development could possibly be catastrophic to our neighborhood, displacing low-income families, singles and existing residents

They might have a point: mico-units are not family friendly. They are primarily for singles and couples without children. The construction of micro-units could be construed as an elevation of their needs over those of families. And while there are no protests (yet), the same could be said of adAPT NYC.

What complicates Somcan’s argument is:

Market demand. Singles and couples need affordable housing too. SF micro-units will start around $1300/month, far lower than the $2300 median price for a studio in that neighborhood.

As cities grow denser, a fundamental shift in living spaces will have to be made. NYC, for example, expects nearly 1M new residents by 2030. The city says 85% of the housing stock for those people is already built, so redistribution of current spaces and new types of buildings will be essential to accommodating these people–whether they are singles, couples or families.

It’s a tough situation. Indeed, many cities like San Francisco and NYC are becoming prohibitively expensive for families. Yet singles and couples need affordable places to live.

Then again, maybe 150 sq ft is just too damn small (though the Japanese would have room to spare). Maybe really small legal micro-units would make cities the near-exclusive domain of singles, driving out all but the richest families. And maybe these dinky digs would open the gates to exploitation–already a problem in space-strapped places like Hong Kong, Singapore and London. Perhaps there is such a thing as too small.

We’re obviously more in the pro-micro-unit camp. We think they portend a fundamental, and positive, shift in the way people live in the city and even beyond. We also believe they can be scaled up for any type of household. But we’d love to hear what you think? Are micro-units providing affordable, smart and efficient housing for tomorrow’s urban dweller? Or are they displacing families and existing tenants in favor or “new techies”? Let us know your thoughts.

Households without kids are the gold standard for public school funding. That’s why it’s easier to get permitting for “active adult” or senior housing facilities – they’re guaranteed not to have children. Almost no housing units with children in it pays enough tax to cover the cost of educating the kids, which is why the best school districts are either in extremely affluent areas, or areas with significant office/retail/industrial tax bases.

The only way a city like NYC or SF will ever become more affordable is to vastly, VASTLY increase the number of units. (well, I guess total economic collapse is also an option, but not a very good one.) The supply of housing in the most productive cities is nowhere near the demand, so prices are sky-high. And that’s with generally lousy urban school districts.

DavidFriedlander

great points peter.

elizabethhm

If you can, please post some of the NYC contest entries along with a summary of the contest rules. It would be a lot of fun to see them.

DavidFriedlander

we will as soon as we can. to the best of our knowledge, these designs belong to the city right now. we will share as soon as we get green-light.

I would not like to live in a very small appartement ! I will be claustrophobic ! Forget about social life …It a sad life…pay your bills sleep, and be very lonely. Its that Mr Bloomberg want for the people ?What it does not apply that for imself ? If he like it !
New york is already a city where you can fell very isolated even if there is lots of people. If on the top of it, you have to be like a monk on a cell,its not really joyous !

this really disturbs me. I think in the long run this will fuel the divide between the haves and the have-nots and eventually apartments that are under 100 square feet will be considered acceptable.

If they lifted apartment size restrictions across NYC every landlord here will start chopping apartments up into smaller ones to make more money. Like mine for example. It’s a rent stabilized 2 bedroom and we’ve been here for years. Our landlord could make 3-4 micro apartments out of ours and at $1000 a pop, our landlord would be making a lot more money. But that’s not what really disturbs me. In a few years the rent for these pea pods could sky rocket and this would lead to struggling families having to live crammed in a home the size of a Romney’s coat closet just to get by. Pretty scary.

Bastiat

as a husband and father of three I am absolutely in love with the change of lifestyle our microhome has brought into our lives. normal size homes are simply too expensive and the newly-disposable funds from having a “micromortgage” are WELL WORTH the decrease in redundant space. our children love it too, and yes we spend more time out and about, and we have the funds to do so.

Peace

I think that micro can be bad for people if micro is limited by size
alone. What is “micro” for a family of 4 is palatial for a single
person, and the opposite issue has been brought up already. Micro
housing can help in a lot of places where people don’t want to live
miles from the rest of their life, but it has to accommodate reality.
600 sq ft for a family of 4 may probably need to be considered micro
too. Maybe we should look at it as sq ft per capital rather than just sq
ft.